Visitor arrivals breach 400,000 in January 2012: Another historic first for PHL Tourism

Source: Department of Tourism Website

In another historic first for the Philippine tourism industry, visitor arrivals reached a record-breaking high of 411,064 visitor arrivals in January 2012, a very good start to open the year. The 411,064 visitor arrivals represent a double digit gain of 17.5% from 349,713 visitors for the same month last year.

“We are happy to set a new all-time high for the industry, as we have now reached and surpassed the 400,000 visitor arrival mark for the first time in any single month,” said Department of Tourism (DOT) Secretary Ramon R. Jimenez, Jr.

“We expect that these numbers will continue to steadily increase with the introduction of our new brand campaign this year and the convergence initiatives and efforts that the DOT has been undertaking with other government agencies and the private sector,” Secretary Jimenez added.

Korea remained the biggest supplier of visitors at 102,166, chalking up 24.9% of the total visitor volume to the Philippines. This achieves another feat for PHL tourism as this also marks the first time that a market achieved more than 100,000 in any single month.

Visitors from the United States came second with 63,160 arrivals contributing 15.4% of the total inbound traffic.

The Chinese market bested the Japanese market as it recorded the third biggest volume of 42,868 arrivals and posted a triple-digit growth of 173.8% from its volume of 15,656 arrivals last year. The increase in Chinese tourists is attributed to the heavy influx from this market for the Chinese New Year which fell on the third week of January of this year.

Meanwhile, the Japanese and the Taiwanese markets ranked as fourth and fifth top producers, with 32,089 and 21,995 arrivals, respectively. The Japanese arrivals posted a 1.6% growth at 7.8% share of the total while those from Taiwan posted a growth of 60.7%, capturing 5.4% of the aggregated data.

Overseas Filipinos, or Filipinos permanently residing abroad contributed, 15,531 arrivals, registering 3.8% to the total volume.

“We are excited to meet our year-end target of 4.6 million arrivals with the full roll-out of the “It’s More Fun in the Philippines” campaign. Our institutional programs will be complemented by those from the private sector and the local government units.